Report: Want to be a green gamer? Turn off your console

The National Resources Defense Council has a released a report revealing that …

Here in the USA, citizens use nearly twice as much electricity per person as the English. Of course, this isn't really all that surprising, since the cost of electricity here is only two-thirds what it is in the UK. But that doesn't mean US residents should be unconcerned with energy usage, especially given the current squeeze on household budgets. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a new study has revealed that the total amount of electricity used to power game consoles in American households is much more than you might assume, and that this energy turns into lost dollars very quickly.

The report concludes that the power used by consoles each year is roughly equal to the annual amount needed to power San Diego. This massive amount of power usage is due to two factors: a) most modern consoles use far more electricity than other types of consumer electronics, and b) Americans have a habit of simply leaving their consoles turned on even when they're not in use.

The current generation of consoles offers a wide range of power use profiles: while the Wii is the "juice sipper" of the group, using only 16 watts in its active mode, the 360 and PS3 consoles have been revealed to use a great deal more electricity in their active modes–119 and 150 watts, respectively. That may not mean a lot to the average reader, but the report claims that "a Sony PlayStation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360 left on 24 hours per day, seven days per week will consume as much electricity each year as two new refrigerators."

These power consumption figures aren't all that surprising, partly due to the fact that many owners will use the consoles as media/DVD players and will sometimes forget to turn them off after they've turned off their TV. And because the current generation of consoles doesn't feature easy-to-access power management settings–provided a console has the settings available at all–leaving consoles on in both active and/or idle modes can significantly raise annual electricity bills. According to the study, turning the Wii off after use results in an annual $3 worth of power used vs. $10 if it's left on. The 360's annual electricity cost if turned off is $11 vs. $103 if left on, and for the PS3 the numbers are $12 for turning it off and a whopping $134 per year for leaving it on.

The report also revealed that power-save modes, if available, can help reduce the cost of using a console. There is no such option on the Wii, but the 360 and PS3 both have one. In the case of the 360, power management exists in the form of an "Auto-Off" mode that's a little difficult to find in the system menu (under "Console Settings"). Sony's console doesn't come with a power-save mode, it can use a similar setting via Folding@Home.

The NDRC's report, which totals at 28 pages, also features a number of other suggestions for future steps to help reduce game consoles' energy consumption. Aside from implementing more efficient power supplies and performance scaling with these products, the most effective step could actually be to simply turn on default power-management settings before the units are shipped out from the factories. In the case of the 360, it would also be beneficial to make the settings kick in after 3 hours instead of 6. "Users should not have to 'opt in' in order to improve the energy efficiency of their consoles," the report suggests.

By incorporating these practices, the NDRC claims that the United States' electricity bill could be cut by more than $1 billion. Not only that, but it would help, "[reduce] emissions of more than 7 million tons of CO 2 each year—an amount equal to the global warming pollution from all the cars on the road in San Jose, our nation’s high-tech capital."